LVMH Hopes To Join Hermes Development

LVMH, the world's largest luxury goods group, said recently that it hopes to become

Bertrand Puech, the chief executive of Hermes group's family holding company, asked LVMH group to halve its share of 20% of its Hermes group in an interview not long ago. He criticized that Hermes had suffered endless attacks.

LVMH group made such a response to this comment.

Since 2008, LVMH has gradually acquired its holdings of Hermes through careful operation and was exposed last autumn.

The LVMH group has long demonstrated its love for the Hermes family, but has repeatedly denied its wish to include Hermes in its empire.

When Hermes group was holding a shareholder meeting in Paris,

Pierre Gold, vice-chairman of LVMH group, said in a statement: "it is foolish for us to interfere with the success of this great brand."

Gold at Hermes group shareholders meeting, said LVMH group did not intend to malicious control.

The Hermes family is going to set up a holding company to control more than 50% of the Hermes scarves, watches and handbags to resist the hostile takeover threat of LVMH group.

When Bernard Puech mentioned the LVMH group's shareholding structure, it said: "what is troubling us is the way they take it. So we hope that LVMH group will reduce its holdings by more than half, so that these shares can be circulated in the open market."

Pierre-Alexis Dumont, an equity portfolio manager at the Paris headquarters of Asset Management Co, France, said: "this is nonsense.

For these, we should not read too much. Hermes is just grinding the knife before the shareholders' meeting. "

Piech did not agree with the proposal of LVMH group president Bernard Arnott to compromise with Hermes.

He said: "although LVMH insists that the increase in the holdings of Hermes is a friendly act, 6 months later, we have faced similar attacks, which have never been seen in our 174 year history.

With such friends, who needs enemies? "

Patrick Thomas, chief executive of Hermes group, said at the shareholders' meeting that the group will probably achieve "good" sales growth this year, but the speed will be significantly slower than that in 2010, while 2010 is an exception.